Cut The Past
by Higuchimon
Summary: Malik washed the Millennium Rod. Why did he have it? Did it matter in the end? Time to get rid of the chains of the past.
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
 **Fandom:** Yu-Gi-Oh DM  
 **Title:** Cut The Past  
 **Character:** Malik Ishtar  
 **Word Count:** 647|| **Status:** One-shot  
 **Genre:** Angst|| **Rated:** PG-13  
 **Challenge:** Diversity Writing, B28, write an angsty piece; Collect the Millennium Items, Millennium Rod; Word Count Set Boot Camp, #30, 647 words  
 **Summary:** Malik washed the Millennium Rod. Why did he have it? Did it matter in the end? Time to get rid of the chains of the past.

* * *

He didn't remember how long he washed his hands and arms, trying to get the blood off. He wasn't certain when it dawned on him that the Millennium Rod also needed cleaning. Malik stared at it for a few moments, trying to remember how that happened. Why was the Rod even there, instead of being kept safely next to the Tauk?

 _Doesn't matter._ He picked up the Rod, noting a bit blankly that the end came off, revealing the sharp-edged dagger hidden within. He'd never dreamed such a thing could exist in one of the sacred items, but there it was, and he wasn't _surprised_ by it, either.

With a clean cloth, he wiped off all of the blood on the gleaming gold, making certain not a single trace remained.

Whose blood was it? He knew that he knew, but he couldn't quite recall the victim's name or face. A sort of veil hung in his mind, dividing knowledge from memory.

He stopped thinking about it. Clearly whoever this blood belonged to, or had belonged to, they weren't important. There were only a handful of important people in the world, and someone he couldn't remember wasn't one of them.

Malik polished the Rod until it gleamed in the dim light of the guttering candles and lanterns. What would it look like in the sunlight? He wanted to know. He _would_ know. He had the right to go out there now. He led the clan. He made the decisions.

He tossed the cloth into the pile of used ones and ran his finger down the Rod's edge. He liked the dagger, now that he thought about it. It reminded him of himself, something strong and deadly hidden inside of a deceptive casing.

The smile on Malik's lips wasn't the kind of expression most eleven year olds should've been capable of making. But Malik wasn't most eleven year olds, in any number of ways.

He couldn't remember why the Rod fit so comfortably into his hand but he saw no reason at all to put it aside. His father was dead, he remembered that now. Dead by the will of the Pharaoh. Malik's lip curled. If condemning them to eternal darkness was the Pharaoh's will, then Malik would go along with it no longer. He would cut away the ties to the past and enter the future without looking back.

Malik looked down at himself. New clothes, new places, new foods. That's what they could do now. He wanted clothes that would enable him to carry his Rod at all times. He wanted to be able to learn what it could do and find a way to use that to gain his freedom completely.

Even at eleven, Malik knew that he wasn't going to get all of what he wanted overnight. But he would get it all sooner or later. He wouldn't let himself do otherwise.

Isis would probably protest. She hadn't been happy since before they'd gone out on that trip to the sunlight. Rishid would support him; Rishid always did. There would be others in the clan who wanted to do more than lurk underground for another three thousand years.

As for anyone who wanted to get in his way… his fingers tightened on the Rod. He still didn't know everything that it could do. But he knew where he could find out. The library held many kinds of information and he could research to his heart's content now. He no longer cared about the past, but it would give him what he needed to step away from it and find his way to the future.

Cut the past and forge the future: that was what he wanted to do. That was what he would do. And those who tried to stop him - even the Pharaoh himself - would taste the Rod's power: or it's edge.

 **The End**

 **Note:** Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.


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